FRANKLIN -- David Laiosa remembers meeting future convicted killer Jayson Vreeland for the first time at the Sussex Queen Diner just a week before Vreeland and Thomas Koskovich murdered two pizza delivery men in what went on to be referred to as "thrill killings."

"I was there with a girl having dinner and (Vreeland) needed a ride home; his ride had left him," said Laiosa, of Franklin. "He was a very nice guy. We hung out for a couple hours, didn't talk about murder or killing people or guns, nothing. We talked about music."

Twenty years later, Laiosa, who grew up on Scott Road, where Jeremy Giordano and Giorgio Gallara were murdered outside an abandoned house on April 19, 1997, has written a book about the killings that became worldwide news and inspired an TV episode of "Law and Order."

Laiosa said the idea to write the book, titled "The Pizza Killers: Just for the Thrill of It," came to him after reading a book about a man he met at a job whose mother killed his father and brother.

"I thought I could write a book about this," he said. "The first EMT on the scene was a very close family friend, and then I went on a musical tour and the sound guy on the tour was in jail with them (Koskovich and Vreeland). Throughout my life it kind of weaved its way in."

So Laiosa, the general manager for the New York market of an all-natural sorbet squeeze pop business, set out to do something he'd never done before, write a book.

Officially released for E-readers on March 23 -- and now available on Amazon for Kindle or in hard copy -- the book was a culmination of five years of researching, interviewing and writing, Laiosa said.

"I kept it very quiet for the first two years. I wanted to make sure that when I started knocking on doors that I was committed to finishing it to the end," Laiosa said. "I didn't want to go and start opening up people's skeletons and closets and then say, ‘I can't do it, it's too much work.'"

Laiosa gathered 389 pages of research, from police reports of the murders to advertisements for Adventure Sports, the sporting goods store from which Koskovich and friend Michael Conklin stole guns 11 days before the murders.

The book's research also included interviews with local residents, politicians, business people, Giordano's family, Koskovich's mother and the killers themselves.

"I want to point out that neither one of them ever apologized," Laiosa said of his correspondence with the duo. "I never heard the words ‘I'm sorry' come out of either of their mouths."

Laiosa said he never asked Koskovich or Vreeland to apologize because he wanted them to be forthcoming about it, not because he asked for it.

Laiosa interviewed Vreeland face-to-face in state prison, but also sent both men a list of 250 questions that ranged from asking them about their childhoods to asking if they got beat up in jail.

One of the things that Laiosa took away from his correspondence with the duo is that they never expected to get caught after the murders.

"Jayson (Vreeland) said that several times. That's why they didn't run away, that's why they didn't wear gloves to avoid fingerprints at the phone booths," Laiosa said.

"Thomas (Koskovich) got away with the burglary (of Adventure Sports), and they assumed they could get away with the murders as well."

Vreeland told Laiosa the plan after the murders was to continue a crime spree that including robbing and stealing cars.

Vreeland also never referred to the incident as a "murder" but as a "robbery," Laiosa said.

"Never once in anything did he ever call it a murder. He said it was a robbery that went wrong," Laiosa said.

Vreeland, in Laiosa's opinion, hasn't yet accepted that he and Koskovich went to the abandoned house with their guns loaded.

"He (Vreeland) knew Jeremy. They were friends. He could have hung out with Jeremy more and Thomas less and Jeremy would still be alive. He chose to hang out with Thomas," Laiosa said.

The book, which consists of 151 pages and 11 chapters, covers everything from the Adventure Sports burglary to the trials of Koskovich and Vreeland to Koskovich witnessing a murder just inches from him while sitting on death row before having his sentence altered to life in prison.

Laiosa said during the process of researching and writing the book he got to know Giordano and Gallara and lived with them in his mind every day he was working on the book.

"Everyone talks about Vreeland and Koskovich and that it was their killings. No one ever talks about the tragedies of Jeremy and Giorgio. They're the real victims in this," he said.

Following trials, both Koskovich and Vreeland were sentenced to life in prison for killing Giordano and Gallara just for the thrill of it.

"The Pizza Killers: Just for the Thrill of It" is available for purchase on Amazon.com.

For more information, visit www.thepizzakillers.com.

Joe Carlson also can be contacted on Twitter: @JoeCarlsonNJH or by phone: 973-383-1292.

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